The effect of agglomerate on micro-structural evolution in solid-state sintering

Abstract

Discrete element method (DEM) is used in the present paper to simulate the microstructural evolution of a planar layer of copper particles during sintering. Formation of agglomerates and the effect of their rearrangement on densification are mainly focused on. Comparing to the existing experimental observations, we find that agglomerate can form spontaneously in sintering and its rearrangement could accelerate the densification of compacts. Snapshots of numerical simulations agree qualitatively well with experimental observations. The method could be readily extended to investigate the effect of agglomerate on sintering in a three-dimensional model, which should be very useful for understanding the evolution of microstructure of sintering systems.

The project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10972220, 11125211 and 11021262) and 973 Project (2012CB937500).